Year || 503 Season || Fall Temp || 35℉ (℃) - 69℉ (℃) Weather || The iron grip of Summer has slowly faded into the gentler Fall embrace. The morning dew frosts over in the early morning hours and melts by the time the sun hits high in the sky. Many of the trees have traded their lush, vivid green for a more suitable array of red and orange hues. But don't blink, for Winter's cold embrace is fast upon Fall's heels.

"Are there lines she's crossing? Should she toe them or touch them with a pole and stay away wholly? But to avoid such a storm he offers, such a taste of life; to withhold herself from the chance to taste starlight, to love satin and silk and swallow pomegranate seeds not yet offered... She should be stronger." — Moira in Small as a wish in a well

The world is alight with thunder high in the skies and lightning veins wind through gray skies like heralds from the heavens above. She can feel the sting in the air, taste the salt on the breeze, feel the electricity crackle down her spine, through her feathers that now stretch wide to balance her as never before, and her soul calls back to the sea and the unknown that it brings. Narrow are her amber eyes that turn to the beaches, watching from the market as a wave larger than the walls of even the Denocte castle overtakes the sands. Down there, she knows, there will be few survivors. Terrors lurk in the waters, and screaming in the skies above stormbirds lurk, waiting for their chance to feast on the carnage.

She does not know her family was from the sea long ago, that like calls to like because that was how it had been in the beginning, that the part that is not in the arms of the sky does not cry for the earth, but rather the water that now seeps upon the stones beneath her feet. The phoenix feels the tremors of fear snake down her spine. Only a fool would look at this disaster and be thrilled, or worse, revel in the beauty of all its chaotic glory. Quick as an adder she turns, unkempt hair pulled to and fro by winds, whipped into a fury that lashes her sides, scrapes over high cheeks, falls wetly into worried eyes. There are screams, there are fires that will not last the hour, there are people in a panic and others who look calmer than the eye of the storm. Moira knows there will be a need for healing after, she knows the infirmary is stable and firm. Walls meant to withstand ogres pounding them, reinforced throughout the ages for moments such as these. "Follow me," she calls, voice high over the storm roiling about, looking to those who seem hopeless, lost, confused beyond all measure. Easily she pulls a woman to her side, wrapping a wing over their shoulders to cover them from the worst of the rain and objects flying about. "You'll be safe within the walls of the castle," and with that Moira gathers those who will come, watches as Raymond rushes in the distance toward the harbingers of rain to stand tall against them, sees Araxes in passing to help bring others in to heal. What more could she do?

Within the walls of the castle voices ring loud and clear, one so soft and sweet it could bring a tear to her eye. Ah, but she knows this voice, this storyteller who heals with nothing less than words, who holds them all so close to her heart and brings them into a new world that it would be easier to stay in those dreamlands than in the waking world. It is here that the Tonnerre child brings her charges, nodding to Isra as she does so with a grateful smile. This court is lucky to have so many willing to help, able to help, and she knows what she must do next. Be it from a clifftop or on the cobbled streets, she will defend this court.

With a final glance at those who curl now in a tight circle about Isra, Moira enters out into the tempest once more. Bones ache for the taste of the sea that thrashes about far below, feet splash through the salty brine invading the market as she makes her way to the fringes of delicate society and a warfront. Quicker and quicker she moves, heart thundering just as the skies, eyes watering from the sheer force of the gales. Where Raymond stands she looks to, surging forward in her own fiery red halo until she is a mere blur of red among blue and green and gray, a bright streak within Denocte to stave off the darkness that comes for them all.

She is Moira Tonnerre, born of the sea and sky. And with every last breath she may give, she will devour the squall and the entirety of its foul beasts.

Breathless but brave, she comes to Raymond's side. Amber eyes are gentle as she looks to him and dips her head in greeting. "I stand by you for all of Denocte this day." Come what may, she turns to face the oncoming flock and tear down the annals of her family's history until all that is left will be ash and dust.

Calliope 'Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.'

The world around Calliope still roars. It's a lion of a storm above her head, as dark and full of flashing bolts as the reckless and violent heart beneath her flesh. On and on and storm rages and Calliope looks ever onward to the sea that seems to be almost done rising. The waves, the eddies of water where they ripple and slap against her boulder are as black at the storm clouds above.

There are no others out here in the wilds of the storms. She's alone in the dry lightning and still she smiles when the first shadows of the beasts crest through the black horizon. The look both like birds, strange and twisted as and wickedly made as the dragons of the Riftlands.

When she smiles, it looks like a cruel twist of an ivory blade across her black, black lips. Her horn whistles through the suddenly still air. It's as if the world pauses on that inhale of her lungs, that clap of her hooves against the rock when she leaps down into the black water, the way downed sapling trees float almost silently by her like corpses.

And then she calls both a warning and a challenge to those winged creatures the world lets loose it's breath and just--- explodes. Everything is a cacophony of sound, thunder and waves and over it all the whisper of mighty wings in the distance. All her focus for a moment boils down to that one point on the horizon, the flock of beasts framed in flashing lighting and reflected in the flood.

Raymond is nothing more than a shadow at her back when he leaves the walls, red enough to be blood glistening in the storm-light. The pegasus at his side is another reminder that sometimes she's not a unicorn or a horse at all, sometimes she is so very different from all of them (the last).

Sometimes she is a mad lioness, a monster that feeds on the suffering of the unjust, the demons of the under-lands. Callope doesn't step back towards them, doesn't want Raymond to see the recklessness in her gaze that drowns out the love and the memories of racing along a sea.

This is the Calliope of the Riflands, the killer of dragons and the hunter of the sick and when she speaks the words sound like violent rumblings of rage as they echo across the water like stones. “Until the very end.” It is the only warning she gives the mare beside Raymond to let her know that she stand with things who do not know how to fear death.

Calliope welcomes death. Her horn dances in a bolt of lightning that streaks above her head from cloud to cloud. All her darkness looks stark and dangerous when it's edged in that blinding white and it looks almost as if death welcomes her, adores her, loves the way her skin is blacker than black.

Perhaps she is a monster now, a beast of killing but she still reflects on the waters like a unicorn when she rears and warns those coming beasts that if they come to kill she will make them bleed a river for each drop of blood they dare to take from what is hers.

She would fight if she had to, but Denocte had warriors, and she was the Champion of Wisdom. It wouldn't be so wise to barge in to the upcoming fight when many needed help, and shelter. Araxes was no fool, and her talents were best suited to caring for the horses of the court and guiding them to safety and to ensure they would be alright. If push came to shove, she would fight, but she would be useless if she was injured herself at this time. Through the rumbling of thunder and distant flashes of lightning, she fixes a gaze on Raymond, her wings fluttering slightly. "We are strong, Raymond, but even the strong can fall if hit in the proper spot. We are not invulnerable." They couldn't risk losing anyone, and that included the youth and elders of the court that were gathering in the walls of the castle, seeking safety.

Her winged head gently nodded, however. "It's safer here than if we wandered out. Let us hope that there aren't others that have strayed far." Slate eyes beheld the red man a moment, and she drew in a breath. "Good luck." It was something to say, she figured. He had skill, he did not need luck, but it showed compassion regardless. In other words, to him, it was more along the lines of don't get killed.

She watched Raymond go, head lifting to see the gliding wings of pegasi and those that would fight joining the man so he was no longer alone. Lingering only a moment, she turned herself to begin herding others toward the safety of the castle walls and its high floors. "Follow me! We must seek shelter!" Her voice broke out from her lips in a loud tone, commanding and drawing many eyes on her as she sloshed through the water.

The mare led the way to the castle, pushing inside and shaking herself off as she made it to the dry castle, ushering bodies past the door and beginning to organize them. She would treat the wounded and keep order among the people while the others fought, and hope that they all came back in one piece.

This was not the change Jezanna had been expecting. She had been looking for a revelation, not a reckoning. She had been standing on the southern shores of Denocte, looking out over the sea when it had begun pulling away from the land. At first she thought perhaps the tide was moving out, and yet the water never came back, drawn along by the moon as the tides were.

In the end, it had come crashing back to the earth with a thunderous roar. The wave had risen so high she could see it coming over the walls of the court, and she could not say if any had been lost to the water as it swallowed the ground and anything else in its path, but it would be important in the coming hours to make sure families and loved ones were together. She had prepared herself for the water to rush the court, to break the walls and fill homes, but in the end it came only part way up her legs, about a foot. There would still be damage. Market stalls would lose their integrity and rooms and halls all across the court would be soaked but for those who were within the court walls, they were at least safe from the water.

She thought perhaps that would be all, until the lighting started, accompanied by no rain to temper the ferocity of it. There was electricity in the air, her hair standing on end in response. Jezanna hoped there was nobody trapped out in the prairie or by the lake. From here to the mountains there was no cover. Then there were the beasts, huge and filling the skies, blotting out the light as their shadows chased the vulnerable across the ground.

The midnight woman didn’t know exactly what had happened on that mountain when the regime had gone and then never come back, but she feared this would be destruction of her home. All the while she checked on the citizens, all the while she led lost, frightened children back to their parents or guided the wet and the cold to the side of a fire in order to the warm them she thought that there had to be more they could do. She was not a fighter, had never once stepped into a battle or a spar, but she would give her life for her court if it would save these people she had come to know and to call family. If it would save this place she called home, she would do whatever necessary.

She was a lot of things, but she was not afraid.

Jezanna heard the planning of others around her, the intentions of fending versus sheltering. She watched horses gather at the gateway to the court, prepared to face head on the dangers outside the walls, no doubt growing closer with every passing moment. She had noticed Araxes earlier tending to the people and offering comfort where she could, had seen Isra gathering the injured around her to heal.

She steeled herself and made her way toward the entrance to the court, toward the three bodies standing there preparing to face whatever danger that might come. Her silver eyes were narrowed slightly, her dark mane swinging with each forceful step against the cobblestone road. When she stepped up next to the trio, she glanced at them each for a moment, allowing herself to remember their faces. Moira, Calliope and the man of red she had seen around but not met yet. “I will stand for this court regardless of what we face.”

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' and I saw.

They were hardly a force to strike fear in the hearts of the wicked. Before the fast-approaching storm crows, they were as pebbles before a crashing wave.

None of them was likely to make it out of this unscathed. Perhaps at all.

Ah, well.

Never in his life had he enjoyed the luxury of the easy path.

The red stallion cast a meaningful glance at Calliope, at the eagerness with which she faced their likely end. Did fear stoke the fires of her heart as it stirred his? Did these strangers at his sides stand firm out of bravery or ignorance of the horrors awaiting them? When the first of the monsters reach them, would it even matter?

Another unearthly roar shook the violent sky, this time wholly unlike the thunder it challenged. Across the lake, made monstrous by the near-constant strobe of lightning illuminating her body, Ruth came hard on the thunderbirds' heels, jagged teeth already stained by the blood of one unfortunate adversary and carapace scored with tokens of her own good work. In his mind, she was naught but a red haze, voiceless and untouchable. He wondered, too late now to reconsider, if it had been a mistake to call her down from the mountains, but no doubt they would all die without her anyway.

"Fuck it," he said, his tone jarringly flippant. "May we live long and die out."

A thunderbird gathered itself into a dive.

@Things

and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around

Slowly, ever so slowly, the flood waters recede, the tide creeping its way back into the ocean. Water is left trapped within the streets of Denocte, but it is dramatically lower now.

But the water doesn’t return to its usual position.

The waves pull farther and farther back out to sea, revealing the shore line inch by precious inch. Shells, seaweed, crabs, even stranded fish line the seashore. Off in the distance, the waves continue to recede.

Out in the Area Mountains, the thunderstorms have started. There is no rain, only wind and lightning and thunder ravaging the skies and earth. Trees bend beneath the tempest’s rage, leaves and debris scattering wildly.

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